


Empty Houses in the Wasteland

by elmstreetkid



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-03
Updated: 2015-11-03
Packaged: 2018-04-29 17:30:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5136461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elmstreetkid/pseuds/elmstreetkid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Sole Survivor of Vault 111 tries to sleep the night after coming out of the Vault.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Empty Houses in the Wasteland

**Author's Note:**

> Fallout 4 isn't even out yet what the shit am I doing.

The Wasteland was so quiet. That's one of the first things the Sole Survivor noticed. Especially at night. Trying to sleep in the vault involved cotton sheets and a wool blanket in a room filled with the hum of the air system while their spouse slept beside them. The baby would gurgle occasionally, sometimes cry to be fed or changed. But there was none of that in the Wastes. All you get is soft gusts of wind, the rare tumbleweed. Everything seemed so dead. 

Balling up their fist, the Survivor tried to work the lumps out of the singed mattress their were trying, and failing, to fall asleep on. They had dragged it into a neighbor's home, unable to even step foot in the remains of their own home, a skeleton that reminded them of everything they couldn't get back. Cogsworth was still there, always accommodating. He whipped them up dinner, an old tin can of beans and some water he had somehow purified, and offered to patrol the neighborhood while they slept. Something to comfort them, he said. Mr. Handys aren't just fancy butlers, and having Cogsworth watching out for them gave the Survivor some peace of mind. The dog settled beside the door helped, too. He was a sweet thing, wandering around outside the old Red Rocket gas station before the Survivor found him. Immediately, the hound stuck with them as loyal as can be. Dogs never change, do they? While he snoozed, sleep evaded his new owner. 

Maybe it was the radiation in the dinner Cogsworth made them, maybe it was their own suddenly shaken up emotional state, but the Survivor just couldn't get comfortable. "Hey," they whistled, causing the dog's ears to perk up, "hey, come here, boy." With a yawn, he stood and languidly trotted over to the mattress. The Survivor patted the space beside them. "Sleep here, boy. That hard floor can't be comfortable, and having a friend close-by'll put me at ease." The mattress was big enough for the dog to curl up on without crowding the Survivor. He seemed to understand what they were feeling, giving a sympathetic whine and staring at them with wide eyes. Eyes that were soft, kind, full of unconditional love and for whatever reason, the Survivor thought of their baby, now long dead, and felt a hard lump start to form in their throat. The dog titled his head and gave another whine. 

"It's alright, boy. I'm ok." The dog was settled by a scratch behind the ears. The Wasteland was still just so quiet. They remembered, before the vault, how sometimes they would wake up at night to hear the baby crying, to hear their spouse go in and sing to him to get him to fall back asleep. The Survivor swallowed that painful lump in their throat, and started to sing. 

_It's all over, but the crying_

_And nobody's crying but me_

_Friends all over know I'm trying_

_To forget about how much I care for you..._

They fell asleep before the dog did. 


End file.
